Review by Wes Grollmus-
Ratings Scale 1(horrible) to 10 (perfect) 

Sculpt - 9
The quality of the Great Cthulhu is amazing.  The sculpt is highly detailed from the sand and rocks at the base to the tiny red eyes on his head.  Three small tentacles protrude from his round stomach, with blood oozing out around them.  There are also varying sizes of holes, gashes, and scars covering his body that really gives him a battle-hardened and intimidating look. 
      Cthulhu stands 10.5 inches tall, which is an impressive height, but this is before you attach his massive wings.  The wings slide easily onto two posts sticking out of Cthulhu’s back and makes the overall height approximately 14 inches.  Even more impressive is the wingspan, which is an emormous18 inches! 
      The base of Cthulhu has 4 dials.  Each dial may or may not be used depending on how many points you decide to play.  The dials are well built and actually snap into place, making a satisfying click sound on each turn.  It would be great if all the figures did this! 

Map / Scenario - 8
The map that comes with Cthulhu is nicely detailed, although very simple compared to other maps.  This is by design however, since this is intended to be a large boss battle with little room to run or hide.  Cthulhu is placed at one end of the map, and all of your monsters line up on the opposite end. 
     Surprisingly, Cthulhu is not alone in this battle.  A number of cultists are used to defend him during the fight.  These Cultists are round tokens just like victims and minions.  They are placed on blood spots around the map, and the number of Cultists used depends on the point total of the game.  The Cultists have no stats, and are treated as victims.  This is good, as it allows your monsters to become blooded, transform, build up spree damage, etc.  The Cultists do have abilities however, which are selected by a dial on Cthulhu’s base. 
     So with a horde of monsters ready to fight a gigantic beast and a crowd of Cultists, the scenario is set.  The atmosphere and excitement created by the map, Cultists, and Cthulhu himself is top notch and prepares the players for a fun and unique experience.

Game Play - 8
Cthulhu is meant to be played against by everyone you are playing the game with.  The rules are created in a way that nobody has to control Cthulhu.  I like this as it is fun to work together with other players to take him down.  However, I will say that certain aspects of the scenario could be more challenging if somebody was controlling Cthulhu, and it is certainly an option to have someone do this. 
      Two of my friends and me decided to play the 1,200 point scenario.  We developed a strategy when selecting our monsters (which I won’t spoil), and ended up bringing a total of 13 of them to the battle. The game begins and during the suspense phase we have to move the Cultist that is closest to a monster and use its attack ability that is currently shown on the dial.  This resulted in a couple of our weaker monsters taking damage throughout the game.  Of course, we wanted to kill these Cultists, so we slayed them on almost every turn.  This triggers a really neat game mechanic.  When you slay a Cultist (the slaying never fails), you roll 1d6 and then click the Cultist dial on Cthulhu’s base that number of clicks.  Then you resolve a death effect.  This is represented by a colored dot on the Cultist dial.  The death effects may further hurt your monster, or can heal your monster, and in some cases can have Cthulhu attack you with an instant death blow!  Ouch!  Imagine your 145 point Corp. Commander slaying a Cultist and then dieing before ever making an attack!  This is a really cool and suspenseful part of the game because you don’t know what is going to happen when you slay a Cultist. 
     Cthulhu attacks at the end of each player’s turn if the player does not attack him, so for the first couple turns, we were not within range to attack, and took some damage from him.  Once we got our ranged guys into position, it was time to lay down some pain!  Cthulhu will counter attack each monster that attacks it with the same type of attack.  On the first dial, we were doing more damage than him, so we felt confident in our strategy.  Also, nothing effects line of fire, because basically you are firing up, which is nice. 
      The game went on with trading close and ranged combat blows, slaying cultists, and clicking Cthulhu one click after each turn.  Yes, that’s right, Cthulhu has an hourglass on his movement dial for almost every single click, which means you have to click him one damage after each player’s turn.  This resulted in Cthulhu dieing a little too easily.  Before we knew it, we had clicked his first 2 dials to skulls and still had half of our army left. 
      The game was over, Cthulhu was dead, and we were happy…almost.  The ease of our victory was a little disappointing so we decided to play again with a rule adjustment.  This time we would not click Cthulhu’s dial during the hourglass phase.  We kept the same monsters, and played another game.  This time the challenge was greater, as our force grew weak and Cthulhu grew stronger.  All his attributes increase as you click each dial and later in the game you pretty much accept the fact that if you hit Cthulhu, he hits you back and you die.  We still managed to defeat him due to some good strategy and high dice rolls however, and had much more fun this time around.
 
We also ran into a couple flaws in the second game with the Cultist (suspense) phase.  If the Cultist dial was on the stab ability (1 damage dealt to adjacent monsters), and the closest Cultist was already adjacent to a monster with damage reduction, then the suspense phase is basically ignored.  This is because you can’t move the Cultist any closer, and his ability does no harm.  The other problem was later in the game when only 2 or 3 Cultists are left and the dial was on the run-away ability.  The Cultists would run back to Cthulhu and stay there for the rest of the game since we had no desire to slay them, and that’s the only time the Cultist dial is turned. 

Summary
In summary, playing against Cthulhu is a lot of fun.  He looks amazing, the map is cool, the Cultist concept is interesting and suspenseful, and it’s a lot of fun to work together with your friends to try and defeat him. 

My suggestions for improvements/rule change are:

1. Don’t click Cthulhu’s dial during the hourglass phase
2. Use a 12-sided die to randomly select which Cultist to move, this helps with the stab vs. damage reduction issue we ran into and makes the game a little more exciting.
3. When the run-away ability is shown and no Cultists are slain, roll 1d6 and click the Cultist dial that many clicks.  This resolves the second issue we ran into.